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NEW YORK–seeking to clear up a misunderstanding, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump explained that his comments last week were an endorsement “of my good friend Robert Reich,” referring to the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration.

“I know it’s fanciful, but I think it would be great if Robert Reich lived for a thousand years,” explained Trump. “I don’t know what you guys thought I was talking about.”

Trump also explained that he liked the Secretary so much that instead of candles on his next birthday cake, “we should all parade around with torches–that’s how excited I’ll be to celebrate.”

Finally, Trump expressed surprise that “anyone cares about how big my living room is. So I want to expand it a little–what’s the big deal?”

MIAMI–Marco Rubio, fresh off two last-place finishes and two third-place finishes in Tuesday’s voting, announced to an excited crowd here today that “Everything is going exactly according to our plan,” and predicted a strong surge in performance in the coming weeks.

“Last night, America took another big step towards saying yes to President Rubio,” the candidate said, as the Hilton housekeeping staff vacuumed around him. “What are the two elections that everyone says really matter in the first half of the primary? Minnesota and Puerto Rico. Did we win Minnesota and Puerto Rico? Yes, we did.”

Rubio later assured major donors that his surprising collapse in support over the past two weeks, as he has fallen from a strong second-place finisher in most elections to a distant third or fourth, “is all part of the plan.”

“It’s hard to explain exactly what the plan is,” he explained on a conference call. “But we’ve got ’em exactly where we want ’em.”

“We got two third-place finishes last night,” added Rubio later in the call. “You know what they call someone who gets third place in the Olympics? A medallist, that’s what.”

Later in the day, the Rubio campaign unveiled a powerful new slogan, “The best alternative to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, except for maybe John Kasich.”

“What a lot of people don’t yet understand is that I really, really want to be president,” said Rubio.

WASHINGTON—the leadership of the Republican Party has “absolutely no idea” why on earth Republican voters are supporting Donald Trump, given his track record of economic and scientific illiteracy, racism, and sexism, sources close to the leaders say.

“If there’s one thing we’ve been doing in recent years, it’s been promoting a message that all Americans, indeed all people, have an equal dignity, and merit equal support and treatment,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R—KY). “I just have no idea why our primary voters seem so interested in someone who’s promoting an anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-diversity message like Trump.”

Said new House Speaker Paul Ryan (R—WI), “It now seems like no one was listening when we sponsored all those bills supporting equal pay for equal work, bilingual government services, and a more humane approach to undocumented immigrants.”

Trump’s campaign itself seemed surprised. “Sure, if there’s one thing the Republican Party is known for, it’s a message of inclusion and fairness,” said a spokesman. “But apparently there’s a group of voters out there who feel like the party’s brave leadership on this issue doesn’t actually represent their views.”

At press time, the Republican Congressional leadership was debating whether their high-profile push to support transgender rights might need to be toned down. “As passionate as we are about equal protection under the laws, we might be a little ahead of ourselves right now,” said McConnell.

“We need to take a long, hard look at why the GOP is less appealing to middle-aged white guys,” said McConnell

DES MOINES, Iowa–seeking to enhance his agressive policy credentials, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) today not only criticized President Obama’s traditional pardon of a Thanksgiving turkey, but then proceeded to steal the bird, drive to Iowa, and then rip it apart with his bare hands at a senior center here in Des Moines.

As the elderly crowd did its best to chant “U.S.A! U.S.A!” Cruz not only killed the bird but then proceeded to wave it around his head, handing out feathers to a few children in attendance.

“Senator Cruz is just the right man for the job,” said Dave McCormack, an orderly working here at the Florence Williams Retirement Center. “He’s said he’s going to tear up ISIS the way he tore up that turkey, and why shouldn’t I believe him? I’ve seen it with my own eyes. No stronger proof than that.”

A patient-sounding spokesperson for Jeb Bush (R-FL, retired) explained that while the former Governor had no plans to kill anything himself, he was planning to tuck into a “tidy parcel of white meat, stuffing, and potatoes.” The spokesperson also noted that Bush had a sixty-two point plan to defeat ISIS, “or at least to inconvenience them to no small extent.” The plan included ordering many, many pizzas to be delivered to ISIS strongholds in Syria and Iraq, and also to apply for a number of personal loans and thereby ruin the terrorist organization’s credit rating.

While Cruz’s staff expressed satisfaction at the tough statement made with the turkey, they then exhibited some concern when Cruz seized the bird’s carcass, grabbed an assault rifle, and drove off into the hills, vowing that “they’ll never take me alive.”

“I think he really has his finger on the pulse of his supporters,” said an aide, hopefully.

“If you are an enemy of America, we will hunt you down, remove your little bag of giblets, and then fill you with bread stuffing,” said Cruz.

DES MOINES, Iowa–responding forcefully to the ISIS attack on Paris, Donald Trump today said that as president, he would build a wall along the border between the United States and Europe to protect against threats from the Middle East, France, and Germany.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the study of history,” said Trump, holding up a copy of Patton, “it’s that Europe’s problems will eventually affect us as well. Therefore the only practical solution to stop the flow of migrants and terrorists and waiters and high-end spa personnel is to build a wall at least thirty feet high all along our shared border.”

Asked how, exactly, such a wall would be built, Trump was dismissive. “That’s the kind of nitpicky thinking that got us in this mess,” he said. “I’ll have one of my business guys work it out.”

Trump also said that the wall wouldn’t cost American taxpayers anything, as he would force Europe and the Middle East to pay for it through levies on their major exports such as Lebanese cucumbers, French fries, and German measles.

DES MOINES, Iowa–Ben Carson’s presidential campaign came under further scrutiny today as fact-checkers questioned several additional elements of his biography.

“We’ve looked at the plans of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, and we’re now starting to seriously wonder whether there was even room for a fourth person to ‘hide away where the other guys couldn’t see me,’ as Carson claims,” said NASA spokesman Bill Rawlings. “We’re not totally ruling it out, but it’s kind of a stretch.”

In another blow, co-producers of the James Bond franchise Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson released a statement that “we have no evidence of Carson’s involvement in Bond’s ongoing battle against the supernational crime organization SPECTRE.” Broccoli went on to note that SPECTRE is a fictional organization, and that “watching all the movies again, we still haven’t seen Carson fighting side-by-side with Sean Connery, not even in the outtakes.”

The Carson campaign released a detailed point-by-point rebuttal, noting that many of the people raising troubling questions about Carson’s veracity are “poopyheads” and that many of them “are probably big liars themselves.” A spokesman went on to ask “what’s more important to you in a candidate–experience and veracity, or being really rude to the president at a prayer breakfast?”

At press time, the NFL was reviewing footage of Super Bowl XXI to determine whether Giants quarterback Phil Simms actually left at halftime and was replaced by a mystery man whose face was never quite visible on camera.

HOUSTON—after a backlash against the defeat of an anti-discrimination ordinance yesterday, one that opponents claimed would “allow men into women’s bathrooms,” the city council and mayor here announced a compromise that would ensure no one was allowed into any bathroom at all.

Mayor Annise Parker, a strong supporter of the ordinance, said at a press conference that “while this compromise is far from perfect, it is better than continuing a legacy of discrimination on the basis of gender identity.” She then declined to take questions and walked off the stage quickly, explaining that she had “an urgent event to attend in Galveston.”

Opponents of the anti-discrimination ordinance ran a series of ads that seemed to equate being in a protected class with being a sexual offender. “I’m pretty sure that history is on our side,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R). “Hopefully we’ve just passed Peak Tolerance.”

Abbott went on to say that he was not deaf to the pleas of transgender individuals to have some place where they can legally urinate. “We plan to have separate but equal facilities in place shortly,” he explained.